To Break
by Loki'sArmyOfTwo
Summary: Loki has broken so much. He is the monster that people tell their children about at night. But will there finally be someone who can tell him, with such assurance, that he isn't the monster that he believes? Just a short one-shot that I haven't done a very good job of summarising. Please read


**So hey again! This was a quick one. You see, the other half of this account sends me little prompts. And this one had been sitting there. And I was working on the other story. And it was like *BAM*: here's what you can do with this one!**

**So here you all go: another story. I own nothing.**

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Loki:

Gender: Masculine

Usage: Norse Mythology

Pronounced: LO-kee [key]

Meaning & History:

Meaning unknown, possibly derived from the Indo-European root _leug_ meaning "to break".

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They floated past in droves, assaulting him in the darkness. His loved ones, the ones he used to love. The ones who used to love him.

She drifted past in all of her beauty, her caring nature now one of icy cold.

"You broke my heart."

"Sigyn…" A whispered response was all that he could manage. But she was gone.

His children paraded past next, their voices accusing; a chorus of disappointment, Sleipnir's head held tall and proud, denouncing his father.

"You broke our trust."

"No…" It had barely been any time at all, and he was beginning to break. His family had always been his weak spot, no matter how he tried to hide it.

He wouldn't. He couldn't. He could not close his eyes, the shadows holding them open.

The shade of the gatekeeper drifted past, saying nothing, his golden eyes accusatory. It was his companion who spoke for him. His golden not-brother, with sad eyes, full of blame.

"You broke the bridge."

He could think of no response. No response to the metaphor, and no response to the physical truth.

"You broke apart our family."

His neck cricked as he turned to stare at the people who had raised him, Odin's eye harsh and uncaring as it turned away, Frigga's usually loving voice icy and hard.

His shoulders shuddered as he watched them fade into the black. He would not cry. He could not show weakness.

The materialization of Sif and the Warriors Three simply made him confused. He did not care for-

"You broke Thor's spirit."

He looked away, unable to face the accusations in their eyes.

But he could not escape.

"You broke apart our souls."

A troupe of small Jotun children traipsed past, dead eyed and forceful. He had never admitted to himself the guilt he felt at the damage he had caused to Jotunheim. He saw himself in those blank, neglected faces.

"You broke apart our world."

Thor's Midgardian woman stood with squared shoulders, anger sparking through her eyes. Jane… she had meant so much to Thor. Yet she meant next to nothing to him.

The lie was like an old wound, breaking apart at the seams. He glared back, the effort of holding his lies (truths), of holding himself together, requiring too much of his concentration to be able to formulate a response.

"You broke our spirits."

A troupe of Aesir nobles walked by; those who had accepted him, those who hadn't; those who had laughed with him, and those who had laughed at him. They, as well as his family, were who he had sought approval from. Those who he had grown up in the company of; his tutors, his mentors, his oppressors, his lovers, his tormentors, his _audience_.

And yet, he had never gained what he had desired from them the most. He had been met with disgust, disdain, and broken desires.

He looked down once more, ashamed, breaking, just as he had broken.

He was a demon, a monster. All he managed to do was wreak destruction. He couldn't fix. He could only break. It was all that he was good for.

His shoulders began to shake, and yet he could not move. He felt his head forced up by an invisible force.

His eye met shapes congealing in the black fog; shades forming, crowds of people, places, things that he had broken. Faces blank but hard, empty but full of accusation, void of everything but hate.

He was immobile under their gaze, under their stare, under the truth. He could do nothing but know what it felt like to be a monster.

Their gaze grew firmer as they broke apart, a blinding light scattering-

Blindness overtook him, a brilliant blue light tearing away the darkness surrounding his body.

Bodiless hands covered his face as sensation returned, a voiceless scream surrounding him, his being crumbling, hitting the ground with a jarring impact that he didn't feel.

His everything was focused on the soft hand covering his mouth, its companion stroking his cheeks, drying them. His eyes met brown ones, before flickering down red metal to a glowing blue circle.

They flicked back up to see sympathetic eyes, downturned lips and scratched skin.

He had never been so glad to see Tony Stark.

"You're safe now, Loki."

Ropes that he had been unaware were binding him fell to the floor, and he was lifted into steel arms as if he were a rag doll.

"You're safe. And no matter how long it takes you to come to terms with it, you are not a monster."

Those brown eyes hardened with determination, and his own slipped shut in the face of acceptance. Blackness overtook him, of a kind that was warm and enveloping, of a kind he welcomed. A blackness that was not cold and harsh, but one of cool, hard arms. Of a kind that seemed to welcome him. And, for the first time in what felt like forever, of a kind that signified _home_.

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**I have another on the way. This one's multi-chaptered. It'll be up soon. Promise~**

**Please review. Ta~**


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